In Higher Education We Trust? Analyzing the Publicy Held University

What Matters in Choosing a College?

by Xiaoting Zhang

On April 21, the job fair at the Recreation Center on the Ole Miss campus was crowded with students looking for summer work. They were excited and nervous knowing there was no guarantee of securing a job. Big posters or billboards were put on the tables. Various department representatives sat behind tables ready to offer advice.

I asked one student how her interviews went. A senior majoring in English literature with a minor in journalism, Kiana Grace hoped for work newspapers or magazines, but she had no idea about how the interviewing went.

“If you are English major, you have to get a minor,” she said, “It is a lesson I was forced to learn because I didn’t want a minor at all.”

Every time she was asked about her major, a second question followed: Do you want to be a teacher? Her answer was always, “No, absolutely not.”

But what else is there for English major. “I guess there is some security in it. But for us who don't want to teach, it doesn’t matter.”

She is passionate about reading and writing, especially poetry. She spends most of the time reading. In fact, she reads over 70 pages each night “These (reading and writing ) are all English majors do.”
She chose her major based on her personal interest. She would like to continue as English major no matter how unstable a future career will be. Reading stories and writing poems are her dreams, and only an English major could satisfy her in achieving her dreams.

Still she is really confident in job searching because she has two majors, English and Journalism. Competing with other English major students, she believes her journalism background has prepared her to work in the magazine field. I asked whether she considered transferring to journalism major. A teacher once told her. “Journalism is to take a picture of the world, and journalists sometimes do this with bullets flying.”

“You have to be willing to die for the story,” she said, “I am not willing to die for the story. That is why my major is not journalism, but English. I love journalism, but this is the point.”

That night, I walked back from campus to Campus Walk thinking about what Kiana said about journalism, my own major. As I was walking, thousands of grasshoppers, hidden in the bushes, chirped, the leaves of the trees waved slightly, and the wind rustled in the quiet night campus. I asked myself, “What if the bullets were flying in front of me?” I would feel scared to run away.

Nicky Wu, a pharmacy school second year graduate school student chose pharmacy to help her Chinese American family fight health and medical problems. “I translated the medication,” she said. “When I do translate the medication, I realize how important the medication is, how necessary it is for someone to know how to take the medication to improve their health.” Initially she wanted to study medicine, but she felt this was not her dream, pharmacy.

Another influence was her sense of responsibility to patients. She worked with people with diabetes. “We actually have to prick our own finger to test blood sugar,” she said, “It’s painful. After getting her Pharmacy degree, Nicky Wu does want to pursue an medical degree, after all.

Angela Wu, Nicky’s sister, is a pre pharmacy student and also has been just accepted to pharmacy school. She took Nicky’s advice to study pharmacy and does not regret her choice. “I like the stuff we learned….I feel like it’s really interesting. Next year I anticipate learning what drugs would help to fight diseases.”

She never thought about transferring to another major. “It is just hard to study as much as I need to, but I really feel like I learned.” As for job security, she said “If you don't really enjoy what you do, then the job security really doesn’t matter. But I find pharmacy is really interesting. Job security has a little bit to do with it, but it is more like what I learned. ”

Many students indeed choose what they like and what their dream is.

Mary Mury, an English major and junior, said she loves her major. “I am learning about literature as well as language itself.” She loves writing and reading although she believes she has less talent in her writing skills than other English majors. A high school English teacher had a big impact on her major selection. The teacher helped her to find out why some words worked and why some didn’t. Also, Ole Miss English department professors have encouraged her to think, not just write, which she loves.
As for a future job, she said, “I know it is not like most promising as far as careers and income, but I want to do something I knew that I love, and I thought I would really want to get better at.”

Another student who will graduate this semester with degrees in biology and anthropology said she had no clue about a major during her freshman year. She chose her major based on what she loves and her previous study experiences. She is passionate about human history and enjoys biology lab experiments. So she decided to select biology as her major and anthropology as her minor. Her family wanted her to choose a marketable career for the job market, but she felt that parents should be prepared to allow their children choose what they will.

Harack Lavoyanga a student pursing her doctor in mathematics, said, “I like mathematics from my childhood. This brand of science gives freedom to my imagination and helps me to think in a creative way. Mathematics has nothing to do with those numbers. The only dream I have is to concentrate eternally on my study of mathematics.” She spends five or more hours each day studying in the library. She thought she needed study more hours than other American students to understand the textbook completely to overcome her language barrier because she is from Armenia. “A slow sparrow should make an early start.” She wakes up early, takes the yellow line bus, and is always the first person to arrive to her classes no matter what the weather is. Regarding job security, she has done a little job researching. She thinks it might be a little early to think about the job issue. She doesn’t worry about job security and financial issues. Better thing to focus on is her current professional studies in mathematics, and this is what she loves.

The New York Times reported almost 1,500 academic programs to the Department of Education in 2010. Most university or college and 355 were added to the list over the previous 10 years as colleges. To stay competitive and current, universities adopted new disciplines like homeland security and global studies, cyber forensics and agro ecology. Currently, most universities offer more than 100 majors for students to choose from in their freshmen year. Many majors have been divided into several submajors.

Some students who go to college know exactly what they want to do and choose the major based on what they like. Some might choose more marketable majors over their own personal preferences. With a job market that is becoming saturated, it can be harder for newly graduated students to find jobs without many post experiences. Still, a large numbers of students choose their majors based on their personal interest without worrying about their future career. They believe that they will not be happy if they choose majors they don’t like.

Choosing a major is a big issue that every student faces in prepares for college, yet college students typically decide by the end of their sophomore year. When making a decision about a major student should distinguish between a compulsive decision and that one is a rational choice.